In the late winter of 2019, I became enamored with Joan Didion. I and my then partner were driving the backroads of Tennessee and North Carolina as a leg of a cross country move from Portland to Philadelphia. Somewhere along our trip I picked up a copy of South and...
GALLERY ROUNDS: Joan Didion: What She Means
The White Album: The View From Los Angeles in 1969; and How the 1960s Gave Way to The Long Hangover of the 1970s
Lars Jan’s staging of The White Album has returned to Los Angeles; and suddenly I feel drawn back to 1969, a year that was in a sense my first real introduction to Los Angeles as three things simultaneously: a place (its suburban and studio/dream factory aspects clear...
THE MONOMANIA OF MICHAEL GOVAN – OR – HOW TO FLATTEN A MONUMENT AND FLATLINE HISTORY WITHOUT A BOMB
I confess that I’m not sure why I particularly care, or at what point I might have begun to see this as something larger than simply the loss of a theatre or auditorium space (i.e., LACMA’s Bing Theatre, which was a part of the original LACMA complex), or the razing...
Manifest Destination: Gabriel Kahane’s The Ambassador
Having followed Gabriel Kahane’s songwriting career for some time, I was primed for a terrific show this past Saturday evening at UCLA’s Freud Playhouse. Kahane has the dual gift of an innate musical talent and extraordinary musicianship wedded to a peerless gift for...